The Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Toxic Edition was tested in HD 6950 mode, though, so that we could see the difference in performance from the original HD 6970 in the form of the Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 DualFan. Now let’s see what we’ve got in each individual test.

3DMark Vantage

3DMark 2011

Unigine Heaven Demo

Aliens vs. Predator (2010)

Batman: Arkham City

We don’t see anything unexpected here. The Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 DualFan is somewhat faster than the Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Toxic Edition and predictably slower than the MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition. When overclocked to 990/5880 MHz, it is close to the MSI card in Aliens vs. Predator (2010) and in the high-quality mode of Batman: Arkham City.

Conclusion

The Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 DualFan is yet another top-quality premium-class graphics card based on an AMD GPU. It features a highly efficient cooling system which is much quieter than the reference Radeon HD 6970 cooler. It also has a second BIOS chip that sets an increased GPU voltage to help you reach higher frequencies at overclocking, especially as the DualFan cooler easily copes with the card even in overclocked mode.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 DualFan would be perfect if it came with some popular game in the box and at a lower price ($25-30 below the recommended price would be enough). This would make it a bestseller until the next generation of GPUs and graphics cards come about.